Novice Gift Pack

After the old man left, Naruto began cleaning up the trash.

A fire in the mountains, and the director falls in love with me.

Ahem, no—set fire to the mountains, and you'll spend your life in prison.

For safety's sake, Naruto doused the fire with water.

Then, without resting, he returned to his hideout and immediately began refining Chakra.

As long as he refined Chakra, he could complete the mission.

Once he completed the mission, he could unlock the game.

And this game was his Golden Finger.

He, Uzumaki Naruto—a three-year-old orphan hated by the entire village—could only rely on this Golden Finger to survive.

He had no time to rest.

Sitting on a bed made of straw and bedding, Naruto attempted to refine Chakra for the first time.

According to what the old man had said, Chakra was a form of energy within the human body, created by mixing Physical Energy and Mental Energy.

If he understood correctly, Physical Energy referred to energy produced by the body's cells. Did that specifically mean stamina?

What about Mental Energy? Mental strength? Willpower? Or something else?

That old man had explained it far too vaguely.

And he had eaten four of Naruto's grilled fish, plus a huge bowl of mushroom soup.

Still, considering the old man had helped him, Naruto decided not to hold it against him.

Now, Naruto had no choice but to figure things out himself.

This Chakra Refining Technique was actually simple when summarized.

Through meditation, one could sense the flow of cellular energy and Mental Energy within the body, mix and transform the two energies in the proper ratio, form Chakra, and store it in the Meridian System.

Following the steps, Naruto cleared his mind and began meditating.

Gradually, he began to feel something.

Could I be a genius?

The thought flashed through Naruto's mind.

The next instant, the sensation grew stronger. A warm current surged through his body, becoming increasingly obvious as it slowly flowed downward.

Then... a sudden urge to pee hit him.

Naruto was speechless.

So that warm current was this crap.

He had gotten excited for nothing. He had thought his training had paid off and he was about to succeed.

After running far away to take a leak, Naruto felt much more relieved.

He had not succeeded in extracting Chakra, but he was not in a hurry.

Whoever heard of someone cultivating immortality and producing Spiritual Energy or Mana on their first day?

Chakra probably was not so easy either.

He had long prepared himself for a prolonged struggle.

Yawning, Naruto returned to his nest.

After working all afternoon, this little body of his was exhausted. He was only three years old, after all. Though this body seemed unusually energetic, he was still very young.

So Naruto prepared to sleep.

Just as he was about to fall asleep, he suddenly opened his eyes.

After all that running around, he had actually forgotten something.

He had yet to take revenge on the shop owner who had shoved him during the day.

Naruto held grudges.

His principle was to never bottle things up. If he had a grudge, he settled it on the spot!

So he planned to go to that shop's entrance and splash it with dung.

But after thinking it over carefully, Naruto decided against it. The target was too obvious. They had a conflict during the day, then someone splashed dung on the place that night—wasn't that as obvious as lice on a bald monk's head?

It was far too unsafe. He would wait until he at least had the ability to protect himself.

With that thought, Naruto climbed back up.

His life still was not guaranteed.

At his age, he really could not sleep peacefully.

Keep training!

The next day, Naruto got up early again.

He did not know what time he had fallen asleep yesterday. By then, he had been so exhausted that he had lost all sensation.

The only reason he could wake up so early was the sense of urgency deep inside, driving him onward.

In a daze, Naruto felt as though he had returned to his senior year of high school.

Those final hundred days.

It really was a nightmare.

"Damn it, I've already transmigrated, and I still get to experience senior year of high school." After grumbling, Naruto washed up, ate, and continued training.

On the second day, he finally felt something. This time, it was not poop, pee, or farts.

He had made progress, but he still had not succeeded.

On the third day, had he finally done it?

Naruto had no concept of Chakra, so he had no idea whether he had succeeded. Only when he received the notification that the mission was complete did he know he had made it.

[Initial mission completed. Reward issued. Please check your inventory.]

[System loading.]

"I really am a genius." After praising himself, Naruto happily opened the panel.

The entire game interface had not fully loaded and still displayed "Loading."

Naruto wondered whether transmigrating had caused the system to lose its connection to the server.

However, although the online services could not currently load, the local services still operated normally.

Naruto opened his inventory and saw a gift pack with an obvious online-game style lying inside.

After he clicked to open it, a window popped up.

[You have opened the Novice Gift Pack. Drawing from the reward pool.]

Then it remained stuck on "Drawing from the reward pool."

Naruto stared at the page for half an hour. Nothing changed; it still displayed "Drawing from the reward pool."

Just like before, it seemed unable to connect to the server, leaving it unable to load.

"This garbage game."

Seeing this, Naruto gritted his teeth in frustration.

He had thought that once his Golden Finger arrived, it would be time for a killing spree.

But this was it?

"Forget it." Naruto went back to doing what he needed to do.

After wandering around outside and catching three fish, he returned to find the interface still completely unchanged.

It was not until the afternoon, around sunset, when he had just returned to his tree-hole shelter.

[Reward pool draw failed. A reward will be drawn from the initial reward pool.]

[You have bound Naruto Online. Please select your Novice Rewards:

A. SSSSSS-Rank Talent (Unique)

B. Infinite Chakra (Limited)

C. Summon Beast: Nine-Tails - Fully Awakened Version (Limited)]

"Unique, limited, limited. Is this game's drop rate really that high?" Naruto could hardly believe the three options before him.

Although Naruto had not played many games in his previous life, he had heard about drop rates.

His game-loving roommate in his previous life had been incredibly unlucky. His luck was so bad it was terrifying; the card-draw rates in every game he played were abysmally low. He rarely pulled anything valuable and was always living off the pity system, never once getting a real lucky pull.

Naruto had no idea how much money his roommate had spent before finally giving up and accepting his fate.

In the end, Naruto usually drew the cards for him.

But Naruto remembered that his own luck had only been average. Whenever he drew cards for his roommate, the results were just ordinary.

Then what was this?

A bug?

Thinking of the earlier notification, Naruto felt that was entirely possible.

This was probably a blessing in disguise.

However, staring at the three options, Naruto did not know what to choose for a moment.

It seemed the game had already assumed that he knew this world extremely, extremely well, but he truly knew nothing about it.

How was he supposed to choose?

Naruto could only try to make a decision using the experience from his previous life.

In terms of rarity, one was Unique and the other two were Limited. Unless there was some issue, Unique was obviously the choice.

In terms of function, Option A, the SSSSSS-Rank Talent (Unique), was a growth-oriented option. But what he faced right now was a survival crisis, and what he needed was immediate combat power.

Option B, Infinite Chakra (Limited), was equivalent to infinite Mana?

Option C, Summon Beast: Nine-Tails - Fully Awakened Version (Limited), looked like a combat pet?

After thinking it over, Naruto made his decision.